Jester King Brewery

[BGBC]

One of my absolute favorite beers, Boxer's Revenge, disappeared from store shelves a while back. Then it disappeared from the brewery menu. Now it appears to be back on a limited release basis (or at least it was). Same with RU55, which both my wife and I like a lot.

I understand that they're a small brewery trying to do things naturally "the right way," but it's getting hard to predict what they will have on tap when and even harder to predict what they will release to who in terms of making their products available in stores.

Agreed on this, it's very frustrating and hard to predict what might pop up on random shelves around Austin. I also understand it due to their relatively small batches and the increasing popularity/demand.

One of my favorites was El Cedro, but I haven't seen that on shelves or on the tasting room menu for a while now. Hope they bring it back.

 

[gometz]

On the topic of the difficulty of finding their beers: does anyone know where I could get a Black Metal?

I just brewed a beer inspired by it* and want to compare them when mine is done. Debating if I should split it and maybe do bourbon oak/coffee or brett L with one half.

*Changed up the recipe a bit, added in rye. Also got 75% efficiency when I targeted 65%, so I brewed up 6 gallons at 1.090 instead of the targeted 5.5 gallons at 1.084.

 

[barrooze]

On the topic of the difficulty of finding their beers: does anyone know where I could get a Black Metal?

I haven't seen it for months.

 

[BGBC]

I haven't seen it for months.

Same. And the original/non-farmhouse version even longer.

I was trying to find a history or consolidated log of their batch numbers/releases and came up with nothing. Anyone know of anything like that?

 

[barrooze]

Same. And the original/non-farmhouse version even longer.

I was trying to find a history or consolidated log of their batch numbers/releases and came up with nothing. Anyone know of anything like that?

Since they've gone away with their old fermentation profiles and use their house bugs in all beers they brew, all non-farmhouse versions of the beers are no longer in production. I expect it'll be QUITE difficult to find them. I personally prefer all the farmhouse versions to the originals (those that i've tried both of at least!).

Regarding the log, that'd be interesting to see. I don't know of one.

 

[Zuljin]

Am I just noticing or is "farmhouse" getting more common and popular? Shiner and Rahr have farmhouse offerings. They're good. I'm drinking Boulevard's Tank No. 7 now. It's good.

 

[gometz]

Am I just noticing or is "farmhouse" getting more common and popular? Shiner and Rahr have farmhouse offerings. They're good. I'm drinking Boulevard's Tank No. 7 now. It's good.

It's the new thing. Never had Rahr's, but Shiner's wasn't bad, just not really a farmhouse and nothing to write home about. Tank 7 is awesome though, one of my favorites.

 

[zmanzorro]

Am I just noticing or is "farmhouse" getting more common and popular? Shiner and Rahr have farmhouse offerings. They're good. I'm drinking Boulevard's Tank No. 7 now. It's good.

Don't forget everything from Prairie up in Oklahoma.

 

[zmanzorro]

I'm not sure if anyone else has noticed this, but since JK changed distributors, I am barely seeing any of their beer in DFW. I went to Central Market, Whole Foods, Spec's, and Lonestar Beverages (all places that normally carry JK) and only found a handful of the recent seasonal.

I'm hoping this is just the new distributor working out the new kinks and not a permanent situation.

 

[DisturbdChemist]

Its not all the distributors fault. Jester stopped distributing their beers to sell on premise. They just got picked up by Flood so they should show up. Though I think Jester King is doing a poor job to satisfy us in Texas but seen people buy them off the shelf in another state. I rarely see them anymore

 

[BGBC]

You can hardly find them in Austin these days too, fwiw.

 

[Zuljin]

I emailed Jester King and got a reply quickly. Basically, they said with their brewing method and them now being a brew pub selling beer on site, the demand is outstripping the supply. They hope to kick up production, and Flood, their distributor, is supposed to clue me in on where to get what.

 

[zmanzorro]

Yeah, I did some research on Flood and they mostly do Austin and Houston, and maybe sometimes come to DFW.

 

[bford]

I've quit worrying about beer I can't find anymore.... there is too much great beer easily available.. I'll drink that.

 

[knelson13A]

Sounds like Flood is going to start getting more pushed out the the DFW market. They have a warehouse here now, so we'll see. I got a bottle of Provenance: Orange & Grapefruit in Flower Mound yesterday, along with some Jully Pumpkin stuff, which is now in Texas.

I've quit worrying about beer I can't find anymore.... there is too much great beer easily available.. I'll drink that.

Hard to argue with that!

 

[Zuljin]

They've come out with a beer called Snorkel. I think the description read, "Here's another beer you won't get in the DFW."

 

[DisturbdChemist]

They've come out with a beer called Snorkel. I think the description read, "Here's another beer you won't get in the Texas."

fix that for you. It was brewed with mushrooms too so idk about that one.

 

[knelson13A]

fix that for you. It was brewed with mushrooms too so idk about that one.

Yeah, sounds pretty odd...even for them!

 

[bford]

I guess I'm sorta glad that I was never a big fan of any of their beers in the first place...

not a wild or sour guy.. in this case it saves me a lot of money and chasing... or driving to their brewery from Houston!

The one thing I did like about being able to find their sours in the past was they were easy to trade for other beers across the country.

 

[DisturbdChemist]

I guess I'm sorta glad that I was never a big fan of any of their beers in the first place...

not a wild or sour guy.. in this case it saves me a lot of money and chasing... or driving to their brewery from Houston!

The one thing I did like about being able to find their sours in the past was they were easy to trade for other beers across the country.

Yea its a easy trader. I love sours and i make some my own. I dont go to Austin just for JK. I usually go if im in the area and go to other breweries too. I'm going to try to ignore them for their special releases if i have to hunt. If i come across i'll pick some up. Sours are expensive to buy and fun to make.

 

[BGBC]

fix that for you. It was brewed with mushrooms too so idk about that one.

Love mushrooms, love JK beers, I'm sold. They mentioned that a second, larger batch was already in the works, so maybe that one will be more readily available.

It's the smoked sea salt that I'm not sold on. Not a big smoked beer fan, but not sure how much smoke would come through from the salt addition.

 

[Zuljin]

I've my second sour fermenting now. The first came out kind of farm housey.